Sri Lanka's President seizes emergency powers as the people fear return to war

President Kumaratunga tightened her grip on Sri Lanka yesterday, taking emergency powers that enable her to declare a state of emergency, which could give the government wide authority to search and arrest, and muzzle the media.

On Tuesday, Mrs Kumaratunga had taken advantage of the absence of Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Prime Minister, in the United States to stage a constitutional coup, seizing control of three vital government ministries, defence, interior and information, and putting troops on the streets of Colombo.

Yesterday Mr Wickreme-singhe met President George Bush in Washington. The Prime Minister, who is to return home tomorrow, told reporters: "This is not the first crisis I have had. When I go back, I'll sort it out."

The White House spokesman Scott McClellan made clear America was concerned at the eruption of long-simmering tensions among the island's leaders.

On Tuesday, Mrs Kumara-tunga claimed she had acted "to prevent a further deterioration of the security situation in the country". Yet inside and outside Sri Lanka a deterioration - even a collapse - of security is what people fear. Her Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) has rejected the latest proposals from the Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE) last week for turning the 22-month ceasefire into a permanent settlement.

With the Defence Ministry now in the President's hawkish grip, Tamil defence analysts quoted in India saw her moves as possibly "precipitating war." Unconfirmed reports said that the Tigers' command had pulled its cadres back from government-held territory in the north and east.

In Washington, Mr Wickremesinghe accused President Kumaratunga of taking Sri Lanka to the verge of "chaos and anarchy". Stockbrokers agreed, and the nation's stock market, which has been enjoying a peace boom, had its worst day in history, falling almost 13 per cent. Investors were piling into Sri Lanka because of the ceasefire, and economic growth was forecast to reach 6 per cent this year. Now all that is at risk.

In an effort to stem the bad publicity, a senior aide to the President, Lakshman Kadirgamar, said: "I am specially authorised by the President to state that the ceasefire agreement stands and will stand. The President has no intention of resuming or provoking the resumption of hostilities."

Within Sri Lanka, Mrs Kumaratunga's move against the Prime Minister was seen as the endgame in a rivalry that has dominated Sri Lankan politics for years. Under the constitution, President and PM are elected separately, and both hold vital powers. The Prime Minister before Mr Wickremesinghe was Mrs Kumaratunga's aged and incapacitated mother; and mother and daughter, who also belonged to the same party, understood each other perfectly.

An accommodation between such embittered antagonists as Mrs Kumaratunga and Mr Wickremesinghe has proved elusive. A senior Sri Lankan journalist said he believed Mrs Kumaratunga pounced before Mr Wickremesinghe could announce a potentially election-winning "sunshine budget", which was due to be unveiled on 6 November.

She was also banking, he said, on large-scale defections from the Prime Minister's party to her own because of her coup, enabling her to defeat him in a vote of confidence when parliament returned on 19 November. But if that was her plan, it has been foiled: yesterday 128 MPs, well above the majority threshold of 113, sent her a letter protesting at her actions.

They believe Mrs Kumaratunga has badly overplayed her hand, opening herself to the threat of im-peachment. The support of a bare majority of MPs is required to launch impeachment proceedings.

The political crisis yesterday cast a shadow over prospects for presentation of the island's budget, due on 12 November. England cricket chiefs were watching the unfolding situation closely, because a six-week tour of Sri Lanka is supposed to start on Thursday. So far, the Foreign Office has not advised British tourists against travelling to the Indian Ocean island.